Electronic commerce is an increasingly popular way of conducting business. Customers are able to identify and purchase a wide variety of goods and services over computer networks, including the Internet. The same goods and services can be offered by multiple sellers, each with its own taxes, shipping charges promotions, conditions, and/or quality. The price the customer eventually pays for goods and services he or she has selected for purchase is a complicated calculation of price, price promotions, rebates, shipping, shipping promotions, taxes, etc. For example, the total purchase price may be dependent on the number of items purchased (e.g., buy three, get one free) or the other items being purchased by the customer (e.g., buy item X and get item Y for free). As yet other examples, the total purchase price can be dependent on the grouping of items purchased (e.g., consolidated shipping for multiple items may be less expensive) or the total cost of the items to be purchased (e.g., free shipping if the total cost of the items reaches a certain threshold).
This price structure leads to a situation where a customer will think he is getting the best deal possible by placing the least expensive items in his shopping cart for purchase. However, at purchase the customer may be surprised by the total purchase price including shipping charges and taxes and, thus, might find that the total purchase price could be less expensive from a different combination of sellers. Unfortunately for consumers, finding the optimal combination of sellers that will result in the least expensive total purchase price is difficult and time-consuming. The present invention is directed to a computer-implemented method and system for grouping items using different combinations of sellers based upon sorting characteristics, such as total price. For purposes of the present description, the term “seller” may include any type of merchant, gender, supplier, or store, whether retail, wholesale, “second-hand,” used, etc.